The technology described in this patent document relates generally to the field of reduced-key keyboards. More particularly, a system and method of selecting a letter for display in a communication device having a display and a reduced-key keyboard is described.
Keyboards (or keypads) having more than one letter key per physical key are known. These types of keyboards are referred to herein as reduced-key keyboards. An alphanumeric phone pad is an example of such a keyboard. For example, the “2” key on a traditional phone pad has three letters associated with it, the “A”, “B”, and “C” letters. One known technique for making a letter selection in such a reduced-key keyboard is to link the number of times a key is consecutively selected with one of the letter choices. Thus, in the case of the “2” key on the phone pad, a user would select the key once for the “A” letter, twice for the “B” letter, and three times for the “C” letter.